


15 Minutes

by thisiseclair



Series: Doodles and Lyrics [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Pre-Canon, YOI Music Week 2017, yuri on ice music week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 15:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12015429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiseclair/pseuds/thisiseclair
Summary: Pre-canon Hiroko and Minako have probably been through a lot. Speculation on what kind of things they might have gone through/talked about.





	15 Minutes

They say that your shoes determine where you'd travel to. It was definitely true for Minako Okukawa. She has always worn dancing shoes, whether it be pointe shoes on stage or those fancy heels for clubbing. Traveling to perform, she has dedicated a lot of her time training and not much else. She's always been called as 'born to perform' by her friends and family. No wonder they're so supportive when she told them she got accepted as a trainee into a Russian ballet company. But sometimes, Minako would get lonely. Homesickness can strike so much fear in her sometimes and those were the times that she has turned to going out more often with fellow trainees. 

Her feet take her to parties with her co-trainees and their friends. That's how she has started dating. Being away from home made her more precocious than anything, just to distract her from those random attacks of home sickness. She wants to focus on her ballet but a little distraction from home sickness helps, a little bit of distraction from the pressure. She knows she can perform. But sometimes the pressure gets under her skin, she doesn't like the feeling and she has to let it go somehow. 

That's how she met him, Adrian. He was one of her co-trainee's buddies. He was charming with those green eyes. He danced the night away with her and made her laugh so much. She felt light on her feet with him and she couldn't resist coming closer whenever he said her name. He said it oddly, but with such magic. She just kept saying yes to his invitations. Including taking her photos in his studio, being his 'muse' is what he tells her. He would sometimes wait for her at the end of the day, keeping her company for dinner.

Sometimes she was just too engrossed smiling for the camera when she's with him, forgetting everything else at that moment. And it was too late before she realized how deeply he has rooted himself into her life.

One afternoon, she got a letter from Hiroko, telling her about festivals that she's been to with Toshiya. She has been obviously falling in love with Toshiya all the more. Hiroko just sparkled in how she described Toshiya's sweetness amidst all the food they were enjoying at the town festival. Maybe it was time she also send back a letter talking about Adrian? They did have a couple of pictures together and she'd so love her friend to meet him, even if it's just through a photo. Why is Japan so far away? A photo will have to be the substitute. 

Weeks later, with their training getting more intense, Minako would go home tired and there would be days when she couldn't even meet Adrian unless he'd be the one to bring dinner. But he was also starting to become busy with his own projects, making it impossible to see each other.. Before she knew it, she had a free day and just went out with the other trainees to a club. Adrian was there, joking around with new friends. One of them such a beautiful willowy model-looking type. Thankfully her co-trainee knew these friends and introduced Minako. She greeted them and even hung around with a bottle of beer in her hand, trying to keep up with the conversation. Sometimes Adrian would comment something directed to her, but he didn't really go stand close to her as he used to. She actually hated the feeling, probably worse than homesickness because for the first time in months, she felt suddenly alienated. She excused herself and just went in the middle of the dance floor, not caring who she danced with. Dancing with no one, dancing with anyone, and practically everyone. At a certain point, she just found herself slow dancing with Adrian, realizing only when she smelled his distinct aftershave. She let herself be embraced by him for the night. 

It's just that despite them talking about seeing each other every weekend, something nagged in her gut. For a month, she was at the studio every weekend. They've been taking a lot of photos. Minako dancing, wearing fancy clothes, or just her regular dance clothes. He made her smile, and laugh. He coaxed out every emotion he could from Minako. He caught her passion in color, and in black and white. She could see how beautiful and strong she looked in the photographs. But something just felt so wrong but couldn't pinpoint it.

Hiroko sent her another letter, with a photograph of her and Toshiya at the park, telling her they miss her a lot. And that they will have to hang out as soon as she can visit or go back home to Hasetsu. It was then that Minako just cried at how shallow her so-called relationship was with Adrian. Could she even call it that?

One Thursday afternoon, her co-trainees told her there's a surprise birthday party happening at 9pm and everyone was invited. Free booze? Yeah, well, count her in, she said. She dressed up and met them at the usual spot where they could all take a ride together. Everyone was so pumped up since it seems like whoever's organizing it is loaded and just gathered everyone. It was a fancy house that they went to and she was just grabbing a cup of wine when she heard a familiar laugh. It was Adrian and clinging to him was the willowy model that she saw weeks ago. What's up with that?

Drinking some of the wine, she just had to say hi to Adrian and give him a kiss on his cheek. He seemed surprised, to say the least. She then walked away to join the other dancers, not knowing who else to talk to or hang out with. The other girl just kept holding on to Adrian that night and Minako bitterly drank the night away, she ended up calling in sick the next morning, embarrassed that she had a terrible hangover. But guess what? Who was back in the studio for that weekend? Yep. She did it again.

It was practically hopeless, really. They never really had a label for what they were having. She was his muse, that was certainly something he said. They were vaguely together. It was another kind of dance, the kind that dragged on. And yet she just loved his attention so much. When it was their day, he made her feel like a princess. But was that it? What happened to those nights when he'd even bring her dinner from a long day at training? It was all gone except for the weekly sessions but even those got shorter as Adrian felt like he already got good photographs of her from before, nothing new to be added to his portfolio.

Ouch. Was that it? She was just something in his portfolio?

  
[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/happyeclair/37061117595/in/dateposted-public/)  


Well, screw that, she just told him to stop inviting her to his place if she wasn't good enough for his portfolio. And Adrian told her she looked pathetic. Minako stormed out and just went to the nearest pub to drink.

The next day, she just felt so awful about everything. She knew she couldn't go home just yet so she decided to place an overseas call, knowing it would cost her a lot but she just had to feel some kind of comfort in this strange place. Hiroko wouldn't ever judge and so they spoke for almost 15 minutes, and Minako was well aware that it would affect her budget so badly but she has kept a jar of coins for emergency anyway. And this counted as such. There's no place like home but if you can't go home, the best thing is a familiar voice, reminding her that she's worth more than anything in this world. That she is a star, and no single event can cover that up. And that she's the most beautiful and strong person Hiroko knows. Those precious 15 minutes is probably one of her fondest memories of Hiroko. It was worth more than the 15 minutes of dancing with that grey eyed charmer. And much more than anything because those 15 minutes brought her back to life.

  
[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/happyeclair/37061124255/in/dateposted-public/)  


**Author's Note:**

> I initially both wanted to draw them based on Madonna and Cyndi Lauper but in the end, I gave Hiroko something inspired by 80s Japanese fashion. 
> 
> Maybe this feels dragging. So sorry! I rarely do write T_T And it's honestly hard for me to think of dialogue and stuff. Please be gentle. Suggestions on how to improve story telling is always welcome. But yeah, I just figured that maybe Minako had some kind of a past. The song Borderline was my main inspiration for this backgrounder.


End file.
